我们诚挚的邀请汉语和英语的熟练运用者参与我们的本地化翻译项目中。
Discussion Topics in engineering ethics about Whistleblowing and loyalty.
1. According to Kenneth Kipnis, a professor of philosophy, Dan Applegate and his colleagues share the blame for the death of the passengers in the DC-10 crash. Kipnis contends that the engineers’ overriding obligation was to obey the following principle: “Engineers shall not participate in projects that degrade ambient levels of public safety unless information concerning those degradations is made generally available.” Do you agree or disagree with Kipnis, and why? Was Applegate obligated to blow the whistle?
2. Present and defend your view as to whether in the case described below the actions of Ms. Edgerton and her supervisor were morally permissible, obligatory, or admirable. Did Ms. Edgerton have a professional moral right to act as she did? Was hers a case of legitimate whistleblowing?
In 1977, Virginia Edgerton was senior information scientist on a project for New York City’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. The project was to develop a computer system for use by New York district attorneys in keeping track of data about court cases. It was to be added on to another computer system, already in operation, that dispatched police cars in response to emergency calls. Ms. Edgerton, who had 13 years of data-processing experience, judged that adding on the new system might result in overloading the existing system in such a way that the response time for dispatching emergency vehicles might be increased. Because it might risk lives to test the system in operation, she recommended that a study be conducted ahead of time to estimate the likelihood of such overload.
She made this recommendation to her immediate supervisor, the project director, who refused to follow it. She then sought advice from the IEEE, of which she was a member. The Institute’s Working Group on Ethics and Employment Practices referred her to the manager of systems programming at Columbia University’s computer center, who verified that she was raising a legitimate issue.
Reference:
Schinzinger and Martin Introduction to Engineering Ethics, (McGrah-Hill 2000), the section on whistleblowing in chapter 5 (pages 167-181.)